AUBURN – Short of a late comeback victory in 2013, Mississippi State would be holding a four-game winning streak over Auburn.

Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn certainly feels like he needs to flip the luck he’s had against Mississippi State head coach Dan Mullen dating even further back to when the two were offensive coordinators in the Southeastern Conference.

“I think Gus is a great offensive innovator,” Mullen said at SEC media days. “You know, I remember spending time with him as a high school coach when I was at Florida as the offensive coordinator of Florida.”

While Mullen will be with his fourth different defensive coordinator since 2010, which includes two one-year stints with Manny Diaz, the Bulldogs defense has been able to neutralize Auburn more consistently than any other Western Division opponent.

“I think one of the things is, if you look, our offenses are different but they contain similarities within the offense,” Mullen said. “And I think, when you look at some of the similarities between our style of play, there’s some comfort on the teams, that some of the things they do, our defense sees in practice, because we do them.”

This matchup will clearly be a litmus test for the quarterback play between the two programs after the first month of play. Mullen and Malzahn have both publicly stated different philosophies with how they’d like to handle their quarterback battles. Mullen has previous years of evidence to prove he’s fine with using multiple quarterbacks throughout a season while Malzahn has stated a preference for finding his starting quarterback within the first few weeks of preseason camp.

“One of the parts of being a good head coach is you have to be very flexible,” Mullen said. “No situations are ever the same. If you paint yourself into a corner and say this is the only way we’re going to do it, you aren’t going to be very successful.”

Last season, Auburn had a quarterback problem right when Mississippi State was scheduled to arrive at Jordan-Hare Stadium, and the swap between Jeremy Johnson and Sean White caused a vanilla Auburn offense to produce just nine points in a 17-9 loss.

To avoid this type of problem in 2016, Malzahn got took a more hands-on approach with the quarterbacks this spring including working one-on-one with East Mississippi Community College transfer John Franklin III.

“In the spring, I was pretty hands-on with the entire offense,” Malzahn said. I’m just trying to get a really good feel for (Franklin III). At the same time, just make sure that I’m a part of the everyday function with the offense.”

What they will be saying

This game tends to be the focal point at which both teams seasons tend to rotate around. The winner of this game tends to be the likely momentum starter for a having an eight- to nine-win season throughout the final two months of the season.

At this point in the season, both schools would probably prefer for the quarterback talk to be over but if it’s not, that likely means something went wrong or nobody on their depth chart stepped forward.

However, the quarterback play, whether it’s been Cam Newton, Dak Prescott or Nick Marshall, this matchup has usually been focal point that has decided a win or a loss.

Players to watch

Fred Ross, Sr., WR – Ross set a school record last season with 88 catches for 1,007 yards. The 6-foot-2 receiver will be the double-teamed target of every defense that MSU faces this season.

Richie Brown, Sr., LB – Brown led Mississippi State in tackles last season with 109 and 6 1/2 sacks last season. Manny Diaz liked to use his linebacker in pass rush and will be the veteran presence in the middle of MSU’s defense for Peter Sirmon. The 245-pounder is hoping to be a late-round selection in the upcoming NFL draft.

A.J. Jefferson, Sr., DE – Jefferson is the premier pass rusher for Mississippi State but last season he was the only defensive end for the Bulldogs last season to reach 2 1/2 sacks in the 2015 season.

Prediction

Auburn 28, Mississippi State 24

Auburn hasn’t won at Davis Wade Stadium since Newton was beginning his Heisman Trophy winning campaign in 2010. However, this just might be the year Malzahn can get one over on Mullen. No Prescott means MSU is going to have trouble matching teams score for score. I also can imagine Franklin, the transfer from East Mississippi Community College, will have friends and former teammates from the school just 30 minutes down the road from Starkville watching how he does in his first trip back.